Windows 8.1 Users review?

Hello, the last month i bought an Alienware 14, but i didn't like Windows 8.

The metro apps, bugs, a lot of problems compared to Windows 7. So like i didn't have the Windows 8 disc i bought 8.1 through my university and reinstalled the system, but again some bugs. So right now im with Windows 7 (Again i had to buy another original license, was a problem to find but i did it) and im considering to reinstall Windows 8.1 because some things like the UEFI Boot is faster compared to 7 and the legacy mode.

Here is my question, how is the performance and bugs right now with 8.1? Also, i asked Dell to send me a copy in DVD of Windows 8, is a nice idea to update from 8 to 8.1 (Considering if is problematic) or use my other license and reinstall directly 8.1 without updating? How is the performance with games and in general? Any way to disable the metro apps completely? (Btw, I already have Start8)

Any pro over 7 that i should reconsider apart from the fast boot?

Sorry for the questions, but like i dont know a lot of people with the new 8.1 (Most have downgraded to 7), i want some user review instead of searching in google (Nothing is like a review from someone that works and use it for games/work).

Greetings

 

If you ran into genuine "bugs" then I don't know what to tell you. I used Windows 8 from release and have been using 8.1 from release, and I hardly ever ran into a "bug." The closest thing I have is in 8.1, with a specific nVidia card, I get very occasional graphics driver resets. I actually haven't seen it in a couple of weeks so I'm wondering if some update fixed it.

ModernUI (Metro) doesn't bother me, it complements my rather straightforward workflow. On my gaming desktop it acts as my game launcher, on my work laptop I use it to keep all my frequent work apps immediately available as tiles.

If you don't want to use Win8+, then.. don't. It's your computer, use the tools that allow you the best productivity.

 

Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 have been as stable as ever in their RTM or patched after RTM form and I haven't encountered any bugs. What kind of bugs?

If you don't like th UI, revert to Windows 7, it's as simple as that. Windows 8.1 allows for easier access to the desktop, list of programs, etc. However it is still very Windows 8 in it's overall UI implementation. The extra options in 8.1 are enough for some and too little for others. If you hated Windows 8 with a passion, skip 8.1 and go back to 7.

 

Like all the responses above, if you hate the UI of 8, 8.1 you might not ever come around to liking it. It's different period, and it's not your fault.

Since you mentioned UEFI, I assume you can put your machine into that boot type. You can run Windows 7 under UEFI and it is really not that much harder than setting up for a Legacy BIOS install; it's just different and involves a few extra steps.

Getting a faster boot time with UEFI isn't really going to be that noticeable under W7; I can't compare the two since I never had W8. To get that improvement with W7 you'll probably need to get a faster SSD.

 

Problems with the performance in some games, that was with the early nvidia drivers and sometimes compatibility with older apps.

I already have a SSD, the improvement over W7 in comparison to 8.1 in boot time is really notorious.

 

Problems with games should be fixed, the culprit was more likely to be the nVidia drivers rather than Windows 8, this is kind of to be expected on any new OS release. Note: not Vista driver compatibility disastrous, but still, some minor issues are to be expected. I wouldn't worry about drivers for Windows 8 or 8.1 at this point, devs had enough time to work out the kinks. Compatibility with older apps is just the nature of the beast unfortunately, kind of like when Windows 7 64-bit ditched 16-bit backwards compatibility. Most will run fine under compatibility mode for 7, Vista or XP depending on the use case though.

Actually, that depend son some factors like whether your BIOS is set to legacy mode and such. It is possible to get similar boot times to Windows 8 with Windows 7 on a modern system with a SSD. Honestly, boot time which will still be rather fast on a SSD in any case is not something I'd be concerned about. As long as the system is as responsive as ever under either OS, what is a few seconds more on boot times?

 

Windows 8.1 has the fastest boot time. But like any new OS there will be issues. Fortunately, all my software vendors worked very fast and all my compatibility issue have been corrected.

The only caveat I have with W 8.1 is that its uncomfortably intrusive. Click on a link and your entire OS has bee revealed. Incredible convenient, or uncomfortable intrusive. You be the judge.

Anyway, the WEI has been removed from uses view and buried deep within the bowel of the C drive. I guess it never really worked, but neither does the Nielsen Ratings. Still, it was a method of comparison.

PROS:

Extremely fast boot times
Better integration/communication/management especially with peripherals/software

CONS:

Uncomfortably intrusive
Monitoring defaults set to on
Dreaded windows takes over screen; cannot be reduced

 

I did have some bugs with 8.0 when it first came out--namely periodically losing either touchscreen input or wifi connection, and needing to be put to sleep to get them back. I don't have either anymore; not sure if they were fixed as part of 8.1 or just patched and fixed at some point for both 8.0 and 8.1.

As for "disabling metro apps," you can configure 8.1 so that you boot to the desktop, the charms bar is disabled, right-clicking on the start button brings up a menu of power user commands, and left-clicking brings up an all-program-list overlay. So you never see a live tile. And unless you choose to launch a metro app or have one set as the default to open a particular file type, you pretty much will never see a metro app. If this is what you were talking about, see the second link in my signature for step-by-step instructions and screenshots of what you get with left-clicking and right-clicking the start button.

 

I just found 8.1 annoying, and besides the improved search, I didn't really see the so-called improvements.

One of the main things that made me switch back to 8 is that the mouse input just feels wrong, I applied the fix but it still wasn't smooth, particularly in games. After switching back I felt an improvement. There's also no annoying aggressiveness by MS to link your accounts with them; in 8.1 it's hard to just use a local account if you want to access their apps. And as far as speed, I didn't feel like 8.1 was any faster.

And one big is that I couldn't 'refresh' under 8.1 without going through some hoops. All of it just wasn't worth it for me.

 

Since there is a choice, it's best to pick an OS based on usability, productivity and stability, not boot speed.
With an SSD it is a small amount of single seconds between the two for equivalent environments anyway.

A touchscreen tablet machine works better with a tablet OS. A mouse and keyboard machine works better with a desktop OS.

In the end: It is what it is.

 

Meh. Yesterday it was all about boot speed.

 

Hem. My Sony TV takes 10 seconds to come up from some POST W7 on an older SSD, 17 seconds from pre-boot FPR to desktop ready; that's slow because of security check about who logged in at pre-boot, otherwise 14-15.

But in all seriousness, should I include the POST in that time? Do failed swipes count too? or cancelling Adobe and Java updates?

Maybe I should be more concerned about those boot times and pay closer attention; just don't know what that would accomplish though.

I do have a solution for this slowness and it is what I've always done: swipe my finger and go pour a cup of coffee;
...but tomorrow I'm stealing some early pie to go along with that.

Gobble. Gobble.

 

My Samsung Series 9 UltraBook boots Windows 7 in seven seconds, counting from the push of the power button. Feel free to name us any Windows 8.x machine that's substantially faster than this. If you can't, I suggest you people quit repeating that nonsense about Win8 booting faster than Win7, on modern hardware.

For some technical background, the reason Win8 boots this fast is that it's really cheating a bit, and performing a hybrid boot where the core system is really loaded from the SSD (similar to a wake-up from hibernation), bypassing much of the usual system initialization stuff. This is exactly the same approach as is used by Intel's Rapid Start Technology, in fact, that is exactly what it is. It requires the appropriate Intel drivers, and BIOS support. Most modern laptops (post-2012 or so) support this and, as a consequence, Windows 7 will boot pretty much exactly as fast on such hardware as Windows 8.

Beyond boot speed, there is no objectively noticeable difference in performance between Win7 and Win8, although the latter may feel faster to some than the former. None of these feelings are real, however. It's all a matter of tuning animations such that they feel faster, or turning them off altogether. If you turn off Aero and all eye candy in Windows 7, you'll get much the same effect. The main difference is that in Win7 you have a choice, whereas the Win8 desktop has been intentionally crippled to not allow you to choose those desktop graphics features. Actual application load time is exactly the same between Win7 and Win8.

 

I was trying to be sarcastic in the last post because this is just another "I hate W8 but it boots faster thread".

The previous post started out "Meh." and mine "Hem."; Mehhem without the Y. there's some context leading up to this.

At any rate, there are fast start technologies built into these different machines and OS's.

Yeah I think this war has been over done but apparently not everyone's ready to bury it.


---------------------------
EDIT: In other news, I was at Costco and tried out W8.1 and can officially start calling the Start button what it is and stop calling it a Startmenu. I'm sure everyone will now be relieved.

Actually I kind of think this war might be good; it can't be something that any company would want. Boy I hope they are taking notes or that this was just a minor detour to something better. Dividing in this case doesn't help toward conquering.

 

You just made an argument counter to your claims. Does your OS get the credit for boot speed? Or is it a combination of OS and internal tweaking that you have performed?

When we consider that the new series of laptops are a lot lighter, thinner and the battery last a lot longer than the previous generation, few folks stop to consider that they've also removed half the components of the outgoing model. You want to lighten the load, just leave stuff off. That's not a technological breakthrough, that's just common sense.

In any even, I wasn't bragging about boot speed, as the difference is pretty insignificant. Rather, simply making an observation for anyone who may still be inserted. But all things being equal, it is faster.

In addition, there is more automation to W8.1 so that alone may make a substantial overall difference to many. How this is accomplished by the OS is another matter altogether.

If that's what you interpreted then you misunderstood. I was simply acknowledging its importance. Especially since that was the main driving for behind the adaption of W7. Does W7 boot faster than Vista? Yes. Does W8.1 boot faster than W7 yes, if only by a scant few seconds.

Nor should they. At least not until we reach the point of instant on.

 

No, not misinterpreting, and wasn't directed at your comment personally.

But, hey you know, I don't think anyone would complain about getting instant on or at least going faster;
Just not at the expense of getting stuffed into a UI they hate to use. It reads: boot faster into a OS UI you hate.

Like my edit to the previous post: I hope this War over UI rages even hotter. The bigger the flame directed at MS the better.

 

How did I counter my own claim? And, no, I have performed no tweaking of my own. This is how all newer machines behave, out of the box.

No, it is not; not to any meaningful degree, anyway.

I thought I had just explained that it doesn't. At all. Once again, I challenge you to find me a Win8.x machine that cold-boots a standard OS installation in significantly less than seven seconds. I am genuinely curious if such a machine exists.

And, at this point we haven't even started talking about the fact that the botched user interface of Win8.x pretty much negates, at the very least, any potential benefits the newer OS might bring, of which there are very few in any case.

 

That correction is fine, thanks.

I am genuinely curious, in particular since I know you to be a competent and knowledgeable user: In your opinion, what are the important benefits and improvements, on non-touch hardware?

 

Thanks for the list. Some of these I can see being useful, if they interest you. Skydrive integration, in particular, could be truly useful, although I am skeptical; the last time I tried Skydrive (probably more than a year ago, mind you), it was worse than useless, since it took forever to sync even with a restricted list of folders to sync; it simply hung and crashed when I attempted to have it sync all I wanted, since it apparently could not deal with the hardlinks I used. I don't quite see why I should care for native USB3 support, other than for installation from a USB3 drive. For anything else, if the driver is built-in or third party really doesn't matter. Same goes for ISO/IMG mounting; plenty of free software that does that. I have never trusted any of the available Windows recovery options: Whenever I had an occasion to try and use them, it turned out that they would not work, ever. Which is why I continue to rely on third-party disk imagers (like Acronis), in conjunction with disk mirroring for my original data; those have never let me down. But, sure, like I said, I can see that people find these things useful.

The one I vehemently disagree with is the Live Tiles: Those are truly and utterly useless on a desktop or laptop: You will never see them unless you wander off to the Start Screen, which you'll never see while doing anything at all, be that on the desktop or in Metro. In contrast, desktop gadgets are useful and accessible while you're doing something else, which makes them vastly superior to Live Tiles (not mentioning the fact that they are far more versatile, too).

 

The issue I had with gadgets in Win7 is that, at least the ones I used, they either float over everything (in which case they get in the way when I'm using the desktop) or they sink to the bottom of all my windows (and don't see them unless I start minimizing windows).

What I like about live tiles is that I can tap the start key on the keyboard, skim to see the weather, breaking news, any new emails, any new FB notifications, and the next couple appointments on my calendar, and then I can tap start again and be taken back to the desktop with everything just as I left it. It's kind of like the widget dashboard in OSX (at least in earlier OSX versions: I don't know if they still have this). At least for that usage pattern, I find them to be superior. For stuff like memory/GPU/CPU monitoring (the one thing where I found Win7 gadgets useful to me), the Win7 gadget system worked better. Neither system worked better for everyone.

 

Personally for gadgets I run 1080 or greater resolution so that all my apps are windowed and I can always see the gadget area. I will agree on 720p that type of usage can be a pain. Then again this is why I liked 1200p and would love to see laptops with 2560x1440 or better resolutions............

 

I agree with both of you (Indrek and Mitlov) on the limitations of the Win7 built-in gadgets (full disclosure: I don't use gadgets myself), but I note that there are a number of third-party applications out there (such as RainMeter) that significantly improve on those in various useful ways. However, our topic here was Windows 8.x.

Now, as far as Win8's Live Tiles are concerned, the fundamental mistake was for Microsoft to ignore the crucial differences in how devices are used. In simple terms, a PC is not a phone. Thus, while Live Tiles make some amount of sense on a phone (noting, however, that even there Android's widgets are a far more powerful and flexible concept), they make little to no sense on a desktop or laptop, and they certainly do not belong on a "Start Screen". Just imagine somebody came up with the glorious idea of adding Live Tiles to application menus, or to context menus, or to various ribbons. Oh, and hey, while we're at it, why not make those application and context menus full-screen, too! I trust that everybody would agree that such an idea is the height of idiocy. Doing so with the global OS application launcher is no different, however: If you want gadget/widget-like objects, fine, but don't put them on the application launch menu, because they don't belong there. It appears that even Microsoft has realized this to some degree, now that they give people the option to remove Live Tiles entirely from the Start Screen. If you are interested in having truly "live" information available on your PC, then you need things like the pop-ups that, e.g., Outlook provides for incoming email. You need gadgets/widgets that can alert you, in a configurable way, of things you might be interested in, and you need a way to bring such information to the foreground that does not mix with other, unrelated functions. Mitlov mentioned the widget dashboard in OS X, and I think this is indeed an example of how to do this. In the case of Win8's tiles, these things compete with space for application launch buttons, which makes no sense, and impairs functionality for people who use or not use Live Tiles alike.

Again, yes, the desktop gadgets that are built into Windows 7 do not quite fit that bill, but there's a host of examples of third-party software out there that do a better job at this. Microsoft could have learned from these, and combined the capabilities of the best of them into a truly useful facility. Instead, they proceeded from a flawed interpretation of the idea of "convergence of devices" to the truly hare-brained solution of having a PC look and work like a phone. Combined with Sinofsky's ham-fisted approach of cramming all of that, including a crippled Windows desktop down people's throats, this was a disaster waiting to happen, and it promptly did.

 

I already posted an explanation of how I use them so that they do work well for me on my non-touchscreen Vaio F23. I've got no problem with someone saying "I don't want to use them that way," but to say that they're no use on a traditional laptop implies they're not useful for anyone.

 

A phone is a communication device, first and foremost, plus a display terminal for various data. People glance at the "Start Screen" (home screen) of their phones all the time, in order to stay up to date in various ways (find out what time/date it is, what emails/texts/etc. came in since they checked last, and so on. This means that displaying information on that screen makes a lot of sense. A PC, in contrast, is a device for the creation and analysis of complex content and data (and, yes, all the things you can do on a phone you can also do on a PC, but that is not the unique and distinguishing feature of this device). This means that, when you use a PC in its designated capacity, then you will never see any Live Tiles. I admit that I have a hunch that people like me, who view a PC as a device for work, are slowly going extinct, and the PC, qua PC with it...

You would have to provide an argument as to why Live Tiles are not a (feeble) form of gadgets, because this is exactly what they are. I can counter you by saying that "they are essentially simple gadgets that can launch applications" (which, by the way, some gadgets can do as well).

More to the point, a Start Menu's function is to provide a simple way to launch applications, nothing else. Gadgets don't belong there. Look at my example of the application menu: Those menus provide a simple way to launch certain functionality of an application. Gadgets belong there just as much as they belong on a Start Menu: Not at all.

Ahh, now you're grasping for straws. Next thing you're going to tell me that the fact that some entries on context or application menus are in bold font makes those menu entries similar to Live Tiles, too, right? Here's a hint: The kind of information shown by a Live Tile is qualitatively different from what a taskbar icon, or a bolded menu entry can show. Think about it. O.k., here's another hint: How useful is a Live Tile that shows you as much information as a taskbar icon? This one, in fact, is worth pondering in some depth...

No. Remember, it is you who claims the analogy, not me.

Simple: They (usually) take up more space.

They are foreign to the concept of a PC, that's all. They're fine on a phone, and potentially even on a tablet, sometimes, but not on a PC.

 

But some people want to "stay up to date" with news, social media, emails, etc with the tap of a single key while they're in the process of "creation and analysis of complex data." Instead of reaching into your pocket and removing your smartphone and scanning its homescreen for updates, or cluttering up your work-oriented desktop with web browser windows to keep track of all this other stuff, you tap a single key, bringing up those various feeds, scan them, and if nothing is critical, tap one key again and you're right back to your undisturbed work space with all the work-related windows right how they were.

 

Sure, you could do that. My point is, there's no good reason for the action you are describing to be commingled with the action that is used to launch an application. Once again, the kinds of things you are describing, while certainly potentially useful, have no business to be part of the application launcher. See my example of the application menu.

In addition, once you have freed your Live Tiles from the confines of the Start Screen, where they never belonged in the first place, you can turn them into far more powerful, true widgets. Oh, and if you find you want to launch an associated application from one of these widgets, you can still do that, or you can even launch different applications depending on the state or configuration of such a widget, and on and on: the possibilities become unlimited at this point.

Finally, you can have gadgets/widgets/live tiles that (you can configure to) have the ability to notify you of important information wherever you are. Really, how useful is a Live Tile "alerting" me to an important email that just came in, alas, only if I keep checking my Start Screen to see if that email came in? Isn't this the height of stupidity? Who in his right mind would want to do such a thing? Why, if I really need to know if that email came and I don't mind constantly switching contexts, I might as well just bring up my email client, right? Or, I might just use an application such as Outlook, which will pop up a notification balloon which I can notice regardless of what I'm doing*. Nifty, isn't it? Behold the power of the Windows desktop...

*Oops, I forgot, I should have added, "unless I am using one of those feeble "Metro apps", in which case I am out of luck, and no notification will reach me, bummer". But then, why in the world would anyone want to use a Metro app...

 

Pirx, I don't use my phone like you have said it is used, nor do I use my PC the way you have said. An OS should never be designed with only one way to use it, or the idea that it should only be used one way. An OS should support different ways of using it, so that if someone wants to use it one way they can, or a completly different way, they also can. Everybody is different, there is no one answer.

 

The world's most popular mobile OS is built around the idea of information to scan being built into the launcher. Android, y'know. Turns out, people like that paradigm a lot. It's fine if you personally don't, but let's cut it out with the rhetoric like "height of stupidity" and "who in their right mind would want" such a paradigm.

Why would you want to know if an important email came in without launching your full mail program? Let's ask everyone who finds the notification shade in Android useful. Or every OSX user who uses that desktop OS's "Notification Center."

I'm totally fine with you personally not liking these concepts. But to keep asserting that nobody, or nobody in their right mind, wants them, is just plain wrong.

 

Yep. And, what do you know, that one was designed for phones. Go figure, eh? O.k., now, let's try and get this together, shall we? What is it that I said about the difference between a phone and a PC?

[Sigh...] I'm in a mellow mood tonight, so I will not respond to this.

Alright, I changed my mind, and I will say this: At this point I am not sure anymore if this kind of thing from you is intentional or not, but I request that you stop twisting my words. From here on out, if you want to quote me, then quote what I said, in correct context. Specifically, the above is a prime example of the kind of disingenuousness I've come to expect from you: I never said that "nobody in their right mind would want such a paradigm". What I really said is there for everyone to read for themselves. There is absolutely no need for you to distort it. I hope I have made myself clear.

I have a better idea: Let's ask someone with a minimum amount of reading comprehension what it really is that I wrote. Why don't we do that? Once we figure that one out, we may understand that good-old Pirx in fact explicitly said that such functionality is useful. Here's the question though, one more time: What is it that Pirx said is the difference between a phone and a PC?

Oh, and OS X does not have a "notification center". It has a widget dashboard. Now, what do you think is the difference?

Here we go again. See above.

 

Several posters are disagreeing with your characterizations of what people do on PCs, what people do on phones, and how the OSes interact. So stop with the snarky personal attacks and quips, and rethink what you're saying and how you're saying it. Particularly when you yourself twisted a scenario that several posters described (wanting a quick view of updates from various sources just to see if anything interesting has come in from any of the various sources) to something very different (waiting for one particular email to come in, in which case, yes, opening your mail client would make more sense).

Um, yes it does have a Notification Center. It debuted in Mountain Lion. As Apple describes it, "Notification Center gives you an elegant and unified view of new stuff as it pops up on your Mac from third-party apps, Mail, Calendar, FaceTime, Game Center, Messages, Reminders, and updates from the Mac App Store. You can access Notification Center from anywhere, anytime, including full-screen apps."

 

Fine, so it does have a notification center, but that notification center is not serving double duty as an app launcher, which was my point of contention. A point, by the way, that I do not see being disputed here, interestingly.

I will not respond to the first part of your post, for reasons that I have made clear, and I fully stand by my earlier comments.

 

If you think I'm trolling you, you're wrong, but regardless, I don't see why you feel the need to point out that you hold me in personal contempt every single time I post. It's ridiculous and you know it. I don't care and you're not convincing me to stop posting, so why do you feel the need to announce that you think I'm [insert insult here]? I don't know how many times posts containing personal attacks have been edited or deleted by mods. Why keep making them?

As for getting updates from various sources in the same space as your launcher? That was the Android comparison, not the OSX comparison. Considering that Android is the dominant productivity OS for much of the developing world, and considering it's used in convertible devices like the Asus Transformer series, I see nothing wrong with looking to it as one potential inspiration for usage paradigms just like any other OS.

And here's why it makes sense to have summaries of info from various sources in your launcher: when you're launching a new program, you're not in the middle of a task where constant updates would be information overload; you're starting a new task (even if it's part of the same overall project). So it's a useful mental breaking point in your workflow where a little chance to skim "here's what's going on in the news, in your stocks, on facebook, on twitter, with your email, etc" might be appreciated. Consolidating "a place where you get summaries of information" and "a place where you go to start a new task" makes sense because they're both things you do at a breaking point with your current task.

 

That's because they are not the same, which is a fact you agree with, as I recall. What makes them different is the vastly different usage patterns, as I had elaborated on in a previous response to a question of yours. I would really like to avoid going in circles here if that can be avoided.

There is no doubt that my definition, no definition of that kind, cannot be valid for all users. It still makes sense to describe devices we use according to their main purpose. People use trucks and sedans, and motorcycles. Pretty much anything you can do with either one of these, you can do with all of them. Nevertheless, there's distinctions. While it is possible, in principle, to haul lumber from Home Depot to your home on a motorcycle, that's not a typical usage.

That's not an argument, it's just an assertion.

Now we're getting to the heart of the matter. My answer is, because it's a distraction. Go back to my example of the application menus. Would you be fine with Live Tiles being added to those?

No, you're simply wrong here. Simple binary on/off information is qualitatively different from displaying content.

See?

I have rejected the analogy. Taskbar icons do not display any content. This is enough to explain my stance.

This is really quite simple: Live tiles are bigger than the icons on the All Apps screen. If I have a bunch of Live Tiles on the Start Screen, I may have to move application shortcuts to a different page, forcing me to swipe to access them. Let's remember where this discussion started: It started with me contesting your assertion that Live Tiles are much superior to gadgets. My main point is, by removing gadgets and replacing their functionality with Live Tiles, you are interfering with the application launcher. I am saying that these functions (notifications versus application launching) should be kept separate.

My assertion is that an enhanced version of gadgets could be more efficient still, by allowing notifications to act as notifications, rather than forcing the user to constantly return to the Start Screen.

 

I had mentioned earlier that actually a phone rep that is speaking to a customer would need their data in front of them while searching for and launching a new program. They should not be distracted by other info etc. This is where the start menu in XP through to Windows 7 was, and is, far superior. Again I'll state though my personal preference is for a DOC but that is me.

Now just as an example the Telco I retired from was just starting to implement for the phone consultants multiple monitor workstations. This just to get more data in front of the consultants at the same instant. Do you think these same companies investing in this will want a UI that is designed to limit information during usage (modern ui) or to have a start button that will hide information for even a short period of time?

Edit; I apologize to the OP, this thread has gone way off topic. It seems more targeted to a Windows 8 user deciding if version 8.1 is the best bet. I would think though if you are a gamer it would be prudent to wait for the mouse lag issues to be resolved..................

 

I think situations where you need to review information on the desktop WHILE the start menu is open is an extraordinary, extraordinary, minority usage pattern. I've literally never done it on any Windows XP or Windows 7 machine. If you're using the "run" command, remember that you can see your desktop in 8.x while the run command is open; you can't see the desktop only when you're in the process of typing "win-key 'run' enter". On the other hand, when I know what I want to open (the vast majority of circumstances), having a user-configurable screen filled with updates and shortcuts of my choosing and arrangement (the start screen) are both setups that benefit me on a regular basis. And when I don't know which program I need, having lower information density and easy re-sorting of the program list (by name, by type, by last opened, etc) while looking for the right program (the "apps" screen) is, in my opinion, easier to browse through than the Win7 and especially the WinXP start menu.

 

Bait dangled, I'm not biting.................

 

Interesting. That, of course, is a broader discussion, which I won't rehash now, since we have covered this ground, ad nauseam, many months ago.

The ability of mine to see this was never in question. I can see people having good reasons to haul lumber on their motorcycles as well...

...nevertheless, I agree with the above assessment.

 

Hey I only did that the one time during the ice storm when the truck wouldn't start......................

 

I went ahead and ordered the Dell Venue 8 Pro. It comes with a full version of Windows 8.1 and i'm looking forward to using it in the environment it was purposely designed for, tablets.

 

Will be looking forward reading your opinion.

 

im enjoying windows 8.1 and i probably wont be going back to windows 7. it is a bit different from windows 7.

you cant restore files that you backed up using windows 7's back up and restore in windows 8.1. gadgets are removed in win8.1. im one of those people who still uses gadgets. mainly for network monitor and hwinfo. opening certain tasks (like changing user password) takes over the whole screen. there is no close button for the applications that takes up the whole screen. you have to leave the screen then drag the window to the bottom and hold it there. the start up folder is harder to find and it only works on programs that are installed on the program files folder, so if you have applications such as throttlestop, which does not have an installer, you would need to open it manually. you have to download the games from the store. solitaire is not installed in win8.1.

boot times are very fast even with a hdd. games are better optimized in win8.1.

 

If I can snag one for $99 when they go on limited sale Monday I will. I see the benefit of Windows 8 Metro on a tablet, I really do. It's a pretty good interface for it. But keep it on the tablet. That's all I gotta say.

It's called UEFI and fast boot, nothing to do really with Win 8.

Based on what data?

 

@Those who complain about the new UI and therefore refuse to upgrade, you might want to get used to it nonetheless. I don't think Microsoft plans to bring back the traditional UI (pre-Win8) going forward. That means I can't stick with Windows 7 forever just as Windows XP users can't stick to their beloved OS forever. At some point, I'll have to upgrade away from Win 7 and get used to the new UI. It's inevitable.

 

Those $99 tablets are only for the 1st 100 orders. Good luck with that and MS has not said what time the deal starts. Even if it's $199 it's still a good deal because it's a new tablet and the lowest it's been is $220 on Amazon and they are now sold out and that was with a price increase to $269.

I'll probably snag one even at $199 because I ordered one from Wally World for $269 plus tax. I only purchased one because American Express has a $20 rewards refunded to your account for purchasing $79 or more from Walmart.com

 

It wasn't long ago that I spent $200 on a first-gen Kindle Fire, and the Venue 8 Pro is such a superior, more versatile device in every way that it's hard to believe how quickly things have advanced in the past couple years.

 

When you take into consideration the mouse lag issues plaguing 8.1, that statement is flat-out false.

 

Not necessarily. Look at the evolution of Vista to Win 7...

 

That only affected a handful of titles, and has to do with out Win8.1 does mouse movement. MS already has a fix.

When we aren't singling out one particular issue.. well.. HARDOCP - Conclusion - Battlefield 4 Windows 7 vs. 8.1 Performance Review

 

If you guys are so interested in the $99 Dell Venue 8 Pro, I'll go line up outside the Microsoft Store near my house on Monday morning and pick one up, then do a review on here or something.

 

And also the conclusion;